Unions using Twitter, Facebook to spread the word

Employers could face more organizing drives as social media use increases

By Melissa Mancini

05/06/2013|Canadian Labour Reporter|Last Updated: 05/06/2013

Sophisticated unions are using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to reach out, and not just to their members.

“I think the biggest impact we’ve seen so far, and will probably continue to be the biggest impact, is in organizing because it allows unions to quite easily set up a mode of communication with employees that doesn’t rely on anybody physically being at the workplace,” said Erin Kuzz, an employment lawyer at Sherrard Kuzz LLP in Toronto, a management-side law firm.

Use of social media sites like Facebook, a social networking site, and Twitter, a microblogging service, will probably increase the number of union organizing drives in workplaces, Kuzz said, but she added she isn’t sure it will mean more organization in the end.